On Saturday, we got an email from LRC reader Eric Sampsel who did an exhaustive breadown of the four podium teams in the men's race at NCAAs and concluded that even in a best-case scenario, it would have been nearly impossible for any of them to beat NAU the way the Lumberjacks ran on Saturday.
Here's his analysis:
The following analysis is based on the results of today's NCAA meet, the analysis ranks the teams based on their chances to beat NAU relative to the actual score. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 hence Colorado is the first team that I will discuss followed by BYU and NAU
Colorado lacked depth overall from 5-7 (the first hint at this was their showing at conference). Since their 5, Ethan Gonzales bombed the result was in the dropping to fourth rather than contending for a title. The combined point totals of the 3-5 runners for each of NAU, BYU, Portland and Colorado were 66/90/112/165 points respectively with an :8/20/14/102sec spread respectively for each team. If scored thru 4, Colorado only loses to NAU 59-58. But NAU had way superior depth. Their 5 scored 24 points in the team race versus Colorado's 119. Colorado had a runners (Eduardo Herrera and Ethan Gonzalez) but Gonzalez bombed. PRs of 14:00i/29:33 in 2017 suggest that he could have placed in the top 50 considering he vastly improved his track times over the past year while finishing 177th in 2017 in Louisville. Herrera regressed a bit from his 33rd place finish last year despite improving his 5k pr to 13:57 (it is worth noting that he was only 22nd at regionals and 18th at conference).
Colorado is either are super shallow due to lack of talent or injuries/redshirting, because their back 3 struggled all year. Their 6/7 have track PR's of 4:02(1500)/14:345k and 8:39/31:08(10kXC) while both scored over 40 points at PAC-12 respectively. The lack of depth was glaring in such a big field when a tight spread is key even if you have low sticks. Thus, on even the hypothetical perfect day in which Herrera perhaps scores between 27-33 points and Gonzalez scores 45-50 they still lose to NAU So they either are super shallow due to lack of talent or injuries/redshirt. Interesting, NAU underperformed as their top 3 from 2017 scored a combined 13 points, where as this year those same runners finished 1/2/5 for their team, all placed higher and scored 42 points between themselves (NAU's 2017 1-3 scored 36 this year while their 2017 1-3 scored 13 points. Thus, it took NAU having a bad day for a team that ultimately finished fourth to have the best chance at beating them, and that chance is slim as my "perfect day" Colorado score is roughly between 87-93. THEY STILL LOSE TO NAU on NAU having a slightly off day.
While BYU and Portland finished second and third, it was interesting that from a mathematical perspective as well as logical (on the basis of historical data and athlete profile), within the actual race, it was certainly Colorado who gave NAU the best fight. They were up through three finishers, and only down by one point through four finishers. That dynamic of being down with only two scorers to go is certainly more frightening and more compelling in the moment than soundly beating BYU and Portland at virtually every spot one through seven.
BYU also had a prayer that on an NAU off day they could win because of they almost matched up better in terms scoring depth and their track accolades are unrivaled. Through 3 runners it was 36/46 in favor of NAU over BYU (Colorado was in first through 3 runners with 22 points). But, BYU’s 13:37/28:27 man Clayton Young was 72nd and BYU's seventh finisher. He should have been top 20-25 based on his results all season and his track PR's. BYU's other NCAA All-Americans and 13:37/28:43-13:38/28:09 men Rory Linkletter and Conor McMillian placed 22nd and 24th while ideally they both place in the 10-20 range. That’s marginally disappointing for the latter two while Young's race is catastrophic; he was 77th in 2016 but regressed to 105th in 2017, considering his vast improvement on the track as well as his top 12 finishes at Wisconsin the past 2 years and regionals in 2017. Perhaps he was inured as he did not run regionals in 2018. On a good day for those 3 runners realistically they could have combined for 50-60 points rather than 96 points.
Now one has to consider that Conor Mantz (finishes normally in the vicinity of the aforementioned trio) who just placed 8th overall after he finished 6th at Regionals, was a runner who was 4th in a split race at pre-nats and was 3rd at his conference meet to McMillan and Nick Hauger of Portland (finished 40th at NCAA). He beat 5 people today including Rory Linkletter and Matthew Baxter who beat him at Pre-nats or regionals. That suggests that he mildly over-performed while Linkletter and McMillan mildly underperformed (while Young clearly underperformed if healthy).
I can’t say that BYU choked, however, because even if their second, third and seventh runners (all of them could have been in the top 4 for BYU) performed generally disappointingly, they were saved by Clayson Shumway and Jacob Heslington. This was Shumway's first time at the big dance and he absolutely exceeded reasonable expectations. He is a 13:54/8:36 (steeple) runner who’d been underperforming in XC until this fall. It is worth noting that he is an All-American Steeplechaser but he hadn't raced at regionals until 2018 and had never been in BYU's top 5 with a full squad (while sometimes scoring as high as their twelfth man until today). For example, he was 15th at regionals, and 5th at pre-nats in the split field. To score 27 points in the team race when you weren’t even on the National roster last year and hadn't even scored before today is an absurd day regardless of you track prowess. Heslington on the other hand, was 20th in a split race at pre-nats, 18th and Regionals and only has a 14:02 5k PR. He is also a strong steeplechaser (8:43) but he had never competed at NCAA XC before. A top 50 showing from another track specialist who lacked experience and then over-performed relative to his showings on grass this fall is an strongl performance. Therefore, I conclude that BYU had an average day with a combination surprising and disappointing performances balanced out to a reasonable 2nd place finish as expected.
(As noted by LRC BYU's sixth finisher, Brayden McClelland didn’t run regionals but he has a 10k track pr of 29:34 and was 26th at regionals in 2017 and then did not run nationals. Once again, that’s a big jump to a 62nd place finish so I will argue that he over-performed).
Let's focus back into the team story, though. On average, BYU had a decent day and NAU had a bad day and NAU still won by 33 points. That’s absurd. For BYU to win would have been miraculously improbable even with a basically perfect showing in contrast to NAU's below average day. A win would have taken Mantz still over performing and placing top 10, an average finish from BYU's 2-4 of 20th in the individual race for a team score of 46 (that is only possible if Young has a good race AND is healthy) and then Shumway still would have had to had a breakout day and place 32nd for 27 points in the team race. That totals 81 to NAU's new total of 86. It takes a perfect day from a team that has 8 guys sub 29:35 for 10,000m on the track and 6 guys break 14:00 for 5000, don't forget about Hestlinger an NCAA steeplechase qualifier.
Portland, had absolutely no shot. They had 160 points and so they basically doubled NAU’s score. Unlike Colorado, they were never up on NAU. That being said, Portland is a strong team and had a pretty solid day at NCAA's. First, the lacked a low stick. Every other team in the top 8 except for Washington had someone finish in the top 10 (Washington's first finisher was Tanner Anderson in 19th). Without a low stick, Portland made up for it with a pack that spread 41 seconds from 1-5 which was easily the shortest amongst the teams that finished in the top 4. That spread kept them under 200 points and prevented Colorado from beating them despite the Buff's having three finishers before Portland had one. However, lacking a low stick makes it almost mathematically impossible to win. For example, Portland could have scored their 5 scorers 21-25 and still would have still have lost to NAU about 85-95. I cannot make it clear enough that it is almost mathematically certain that a team needs a top 10 finisher to win NCAA's.
Interestingly, Portland actually had a low stick returning from 2017 in Roudolff-Levisse, Emmanuel and brought back another All-American in Hauger, Nick from 2017. At face value, the first assumption would be that perhaps some of their top guns severely underperformed. That is not the case, however. While Roudolff-Levisse was 11th last year and 21st this year, their second finisher, Logan Orndorff seemingly over-performed considering he was 64th last year at NCAA's but jumped up almost 40 spots to 25th and only has a 5k pr of 14:15. Portland's third and fourth finishers balance out as Nick Hauger underperformed as he finished 1st at both regionals and conference while finishing 26th last year but their fourth finisher, McCallum, Stuart is a miler who didn’t even run XC last fall. McCallum He finished only 40th at Wisconsin so to finish 48th at nationals effectively cancels out Hauger dropping 20 spots from 2017 to 2018 if it is not a net positive. Portland's 5-7 simply did their job and performed on par with expectations, their 5th man, Michael Somers is a European transfer. Somers is a 13:51/28:50 guy but he’d been injured and only ran 3 races this fall. Considering he injured for at least part of the fall and lacks NCAA XC experience, 57th is a good finish even if one considers his track prowess . The sixth man, Caleb Webb seems to be a 15/5k guy. He finished 54th on the miler friendly Louisville course versus 68th on a Wisconsin course that seems to favor distance/XC specialists (only one miler, NCAA 1500m champ Oliver Hoare finished in the top 20) . Even if we adjust for Hauger, Somers and Webb performing more than 15 spots below projections, it would not be nearly enough to beat NAU or probably even BYU. Theoretically, suppose that instead of 21/25/40/48/57 (individual places) for 160 team points we could try to adjust for an overall strong team day for Portland when everyone arguably over-performs or matches their previous NCAA finish. Considering track PR's and previous XC finishes an incredibly generous spread would roughly breakdown to a score of 10/20/25/26(Somers)/47 probably equates to 109 points while displacing several BYU and NAU.In this scenario, the score would roughly be:
NAU: 85
Portland: 109
BYU: 119
Now consider a more reasonable a Portland scoring breakdown of averaging 25th in the individual race between their first 4 runners while McCallum still finishes 47th. That score comes out to:
NAU:84
BYU: 119
Portland 125
So Portland would have had to have an essentially perfect day to just beat BYU while they still lose to BYU on a day where they run mostly as projected while McCallum over-performs. Their tight scoring spread saved them from slipping out of the top 3 and secured them a podium finish regardless of how the sticks fell from the different runners 2-7.